Hi all,
I took my GMAT yesterday (September 24th) and came out very disappointed I Scored 670 (Q47,V35)
The most surprising thing was that in all of my GMAT prep CAT practice tests in the last two weeks of preparation I never sank
below Q48. Here is my take on each part:
Quantitative
I most say that I saw some very strange problems, especially one that mentioned a weird definition of a decimal
that I can't seem to remember (it was a long word, maybe one of you can say what sort of decimal can you expect
to get when dividing \(5^r/2^s\) )
Anyway some problems seemed really easy in the first part and I was very suspicious double checking every answer
when I got around to the 20th question it became more difficult yet I guess very tricky rather than complicated.
I really can't say where I really made a mistake, I must assume that I was probably falling for all sort of tricks
I had the feeling during the exam that I am not seeing difficult enough questions. So I guess the difficulty is more in the tricks department rather than in the difficulty one can expect (no combinatorial or probability questions at all!). After reading some reviews on the GMAT club excellent math tests I am very sorry I didn't give them a try.
Verbal
The verbal section really surprised me in the CR questions. In no CAT practice test I took I had to be in a dilemma of which is the right answer in so many question. I rarely got a mistake in CR in both GMAT prep
MGMAT tests.
I usually got 1 or 2 mistakes in all the CR questions in each test with being very confident on which answer to choose. Another thing that could have influenced my judgment is the high pressure I felt before taking the exam.
I guess it is a lot more important to me than any other test I ever took because this pressure was very new to me. Regarding RC & SC this were constantly my weakest parts in all the CAT exams I took. So no real surprise there. the first 2 RC parts were quite reasonable to understand with reasonable questions to answer. the last 2 were much more difficult with very difficult questions.
The score of 35 is not very disappointing since this sort of a median score I scored higher in some tests but I guess what lowered my score was the struggle with the CR questions.
Help
My preparation mainly included the Master GMAT course which I must say is quite a disappointment at the end of the day. I can say that its quants section is more close to the GMAT than
MGMAT quants section. In the CAT exams I took, it really challenged me with tricky and difficult questions. On the other hand the verbal is just not up to the standard of the GMAT. The SC part is rather easy and the most annoying part was that it kept using for practice the same 3 or 4 RC passages. You can't really learn how to analyze a passage when you keep getting the same one. What was even more annoying that they used the same passages in their CAT tests. When one of their instructors examined my test he also noticed that I got like 7 passages (some of them repeating). He said that it looks like I exhausted there Verbal question bank or something like that. The best thing I can mention is this instructor that was not biased by encouraging me to take different CAT test like the
MGMAT test I had. And also referred me to the
OG to solve more real GMAT SC questions. I most say that this was his best tip. I used to get 30 in verbal until I tackled all the question in the
OG which increased my SC correct answers percentage significantly. I also used the
MGMAT SC to revise the grammar rules and I must say I don't think you can top its explanations. In the really early stages of my preparation I used the Kaplan Premier which is nice as a starter but not more than that. Also Kaplan's CAT tests are far away from the real GMAT in both the Quants and the Verbal.
These are my scores in the CAT tests in a chronological order:
Master GMAT 2 660-690(Q48-50,V34-36)
Master GMAT 3 680-690 (Q49-50,V35-36)
-- stopped doing these because of the verbal issue
MGMAT 1 - 640 (Q44,V34)
MGMAT 2 - 640 (Q44,V34)
Kaplan CD 1 - 550
GMAT prep 1 - 650 (Q49,V30)
-- made a stop to improve my SC
MGMAT 3 - 670 (Q47,V34)
MGMAT 4 - 710 (Q48,V38)
GMAT prep 2 - 690 (Q49,V35)
MGMAT 5 - 710 (Q47,V40)
MGMAT 6 - 700 (Q47,V38)
Kaplan Internet 3 - 680 (Q51,V30)
GMAT prep 1 (2nd try) - 690 (Q48,V36)
GMAT prep 2 (2nd try) - 680 (Q49,V32)
GMAT prep 1 (3rd try) - 760 (Q50, V42)
GMAT prep 2 (3rd try) - 690 (Q49, V35)
I looked in the Knewton course which promises +50 or money back guarantee. But I must say that the money is not of my interest I really want to improve my score and I am willing to do what ever it takes.
Can anyone who improved a score similar to mine can tell me how he did it?
Can anyone recommend the Knewton course as a score improver?
What is the minimum time you think I need before I reschedule my second try? I really want to make it to some first round applications. If I will register to the 25th of October I would manage to squeeze in to the first round of 2 schools I want to apply to.
Any tip or advice will be much appreciated. Thanks!
(BTW I also need your kudos to open my
GMAT club tests..
)